From my friend Elaine who attended the Reading of Rachel's Words at Riverside Church last night

You may or may not have heard about Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner's collaboration on a theater piece called My Name is Rachel Corrie. It was a great success at the Royal Court Theater in London and the New York Theater Workshop contracted to bring it here until pressure from anonymous Jewish organizations caused it to renege on the contract. A theater piece about a brave young woman who was run over and killed by an Israeli bulldozer while she tried to keep it from demolishing the house of a pharmacist and his family was just too inflammatory.

Of course the main anger was in the anti-occupation groups, both Jewish and non-Jewish. The surprising thing is the quickness of the reaction to the censorship. Within two weeks of the refusal, a small group of people organized world wide readings of basically the same texts as made up the theater piece in the first place. On March 16, the third anniversary of Rachel's murder, there were over 70 readings of her letters in 15 countries, Europe, of course, but also Basra, Jerusalem, Cambodia, Kosovo. And last night, in New York City.

The presentation was at Riverside Cathedral and consisted mostly of speeches by notables in the anti-occupation community. Amy Goodman, James Zogby, Maya Angelou, Patti Smith (by video) a NY senatorial candidate (with a political death wish, I suppose), a few Palestinian actors and political figures, another activist whose face had been partially shot off by an Israeli soldier, and an Israeli peace activist.. These speeches were striking, even informative, but dragged on a bit long. The moving part , the part we all came for was of course the presentation of Rachel's own words, from a childhood speech on hunger, to letters to parents and friends and in some brief footage of her speaking in Rafah shortly before she was murdered.

I had already long admired her, carried a poster of her in many of the peace and anti-occupation marches I went to. But the truly surprising thing is that the woman was in fact extraordinary. She had died so young, she had never lost the humanitarianism and idealism some young people are blessed (or cursed) with. By every articulate word she wrote, she was genuinely.well. Ghandi-like. Bitter old nihilist that I am, I find myself reaching for the word saintly, but perhaps that is too religious a word. Rachel was moral and heroic in no context but her own, and to the point of self-sacrifice.

There was a picture of her standing on the mound, in her bright orange vest with a bullhorn talking to the driver of the bulldozer taken minutes before he ran over her twice. (The Israeli Defense forces found the driver innocent of wrong-doing.) I know there are also photos of her, lying broken, in the few moments she still lived (I saw them on the internet), but the presenters had the good taste not to show them.

What stays in he memory is her beautiful young face, frowning into the camera, reporting on the conditions in Rafa on the incomprehensible indifference of people to the suffering of the Palestinians.

Her parents spoke too, eloquently, deeply wounded by the literal insult added to injury of Congress refusing to investigate the murder, in spite of photographs and the facts.

I do not think the memory of her death will go away soon.